The American Dream vs. the Gospel of Wealth

Is America meant to be a land of opportunity or inequality? Civic virtue or consumerism? Gus Speth explores three deep contradictions in the American identity, asking: What’s next for the American dream?

Throughout our history, there have
been alternative, competing visions of the "good life" in America. The story of
how these competing visions played out in our history is prologue to an
important question: What is the American Dream and what is its future?

The Pursuit of Happiness: Public Good or Personal Pleasure?

The
issue came up in the early Republic, offspring of the ambiguity in
Jefferson's declaration that we have an unalienable right to "the
pursuit of
happiness." Darrin McMahon in his admirable book, Happiness: A History, will be our guide here. McMahon locates the
origins of the "right to happiness" in the Enlightenment. "'Does not
everyone have a right to happiness?' asked the entry on that subject in
the French encyclopedia edited by Denis Diderot. Judged by the standards of the
preceding millennium and a half, the question was extraordinary: a right to happiness? And yet it was posed
rhetorically, in full confidence of the nodding assent of enlightened minds." It
was in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, that Jeremy Bentham
would write his famous principle of utility: "It is the greatest happiness of
the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."

Thus,
when Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration in June of that memorable year,
the words "the pursuit of happiness" came naturally to him, and the language
sailed through the debates of June and July without dissent. McMahon believes
this lack of controversy stemmed in part from the fact that the "pursuit of
happiness" phrase brought together ambiguously two very different notions: the
idea from John Locke and Jeremy Bentham that happiness was the pursuit of
personal pleasure and the older Stoic idea that happiness derived from active
devotion to the public good and from civic virtue, which have little to do with
personal pleasure.

The story of the
pursuit of happiness in America is a story of its close alliance with
capitalism and consumerism.

"The ‘pursuit of happiness,'"
McMahon writes, "was launched in different, and potentially conflicting,
directions from the start, with private pleasure and public welfare coexisting
in the same phrase. For Jefferson, so quintessentially in this respect a man of
the Enlightenment, the coexistence was not a problem." But Jefferson's formula
almost immediately lost its double meaning in practice, McMahon notes, and the
right of citizens to pursue their personal interests and joy won out. This
victory was confirmed by waves of immigrants to America's shores, for whom
America was truly the land of opportunity. "To pursue happiness in such a land
was quite rightly to pursue prosperity, to pursue pleasure, to pursue wealth."

It
is in this jettisoning of the civic virtue concept of happiness in favor of the
self-gratification side that McMahon finds the link between the pursuit of
happiness and the rise of American capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Happiness, he writes, "continued to entice with attractive
force, providing a justification for work and sacrifice, a basis for meaning
and hope that only loomed larger on the horizon of Western democracies."
"If economic growth was now a secular religion," McMahon observes,
"the pursuit of happiness remained its central creed, with greater
opportunities than ever before to pursue pleasure in comfort and things." Max Weber saw this transformation first hand."Material goods,"he
observed in The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism,"have
gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men as
at no previous period in history."

The story of the
pursuit of happiness in America is thus a story of its close alliance with
capitalism and consumerism. But in recent years, many researchers have begun to
see this relationship as one of misplaced allegiance. Has the pursuit of
happiness through growth in material abundance and possessions actually brought
Americans happiness? That is a question more for science than for philosophy,
and the good news is that social scientists have in fact recently turned
abundantly to the subject. A
new field, positive psychology, the study of happiness and subjective
well-being, has been invented, and there is now even a professional Journal of Happiness Studies.

Imagine,
if you will, two very different alternatives for affluent societies. In one,
economic growth, prosperity and affluence bring steadily increasing human
happiness, well-being and satisfaction. In a second, prosperity and happiness
are not correlated, and, indeed, prosperity, beyond a certain point, is
associated with the growth of important social pathologies. Which scenario
provides a closer fit to reality?

What the social
scientists in this new field are telling us is of fundamental importance. Two
of the leaders in the field, Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, carried out a
review of the now-voluminous literature on well-being in their 2004 article,
"Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being." In what follows, I will draw upon this article and other research.

The overall
concept that is gaining acceptance among researchers is "subjective well-being," i.e., a person's own opinion of his or her well being. Subjects in
surveys are frequently asked, on a scale of one to 10, how satisfied are you
with your life? Most well-being surveys today ask individuals how happy or
satisfied they are with their lives in general, how satisfied they are in
particular contexts (e.g., work, marriage), or how much they trust others, and
so on.

A good place to
begin is with the studies that compare levels of happiness and life
satisfaction among nations at different stages of economic development. They
find that the citizens of wealthier countries do report higher levels of life
satisfaction, although the correlation is rather poor and is even poorer when
factors such as quality of government are statistically controlled. Moreover,
this positive relationship between national well-being and national per capita
income virtually disappears when one looks only at countries with GDP per
capita over $10,000 per year. In short, once a country achieves a moderate level of income, further growth
does not significantly improve perceived well-being.

Diener and
Seligman report that peoples with the highest well-being are not those in the
richest countries but those who live where political institutions are effective
and human rights protected, where corruption is low, and mutual trust high.

Even more
challenging to the idea that well-being increases with higher incomes is
extensive time series data showing that throughout almost the entire post-World
War II period, as incomes skyrocketed in the United States and other advanced
economies, reported life satisfaction and happiness levels stagnated or even
declined slightly.

But that is not
all. Diener and Seligman note that, "Even more disparity [between income and
well-being] shows up when ill-being measures are considered. For instance,
depression rates have increased 10-fold over the same 50-year period, and rates
of anxiety are also rising ... [T]he average American child in the 1980s
reported greater anxiety than the average child receiving psychiatric treatment
in the 1950s. There is [also] a decreasing level of social connectedness in
society, as evidenced by declining levels of trust in other people and in
governmental institutions." Numerous studies also stress that nothing is more
devastating to well-being than losing one's job and unemployment.

Instead of income,
Diener and Seligman stress the importance of personal relationships to
happiness: "The quality of people's social relationships is crucial to their
well-being. People need supportive, positive relationships and social belonging
to sustain well-being ... [T]he need to belong, to have close and long-term
social relationships, is a fundamental human need ... People need social
bonds in committed relationships, not simply interactions with strangers, to
experience well-being."

In short, what the
social scientists are telling us is that as of today, in Ed Diener's words,
"materialism is toxic for happiness." Whether the pursuit of happiness through evermore possessions succeeded earlier
in our history, it no longer does.

The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth

Norton
Garfinkle traces another dueling duality in the American tradition, one
reflected in the title of his helpful book, The
American Dream vs. the Gospel of Wealth. Although the phrase "the American
Dream" entered the language thanks to James Truslow Adams and his 1931 book, The Epic of America, Garfinkle argues
that the force of the concept, if not the phrase, derives from President
Lincoln. "More than any other president,"
Garfinkle believes, "Lincoln is the father of the American Dream that all Americans
should have the opportunity through hard work to build a comfortable middle class
life. For Lincoln, liberty meant above all the right of individuals to the
fruits of their own labor, seen as a path to prosperity. ‘To [secure] to each
laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible,' he wrote,
‘is a most worthy object of any good government.'"

"It is not a dream of motor cars and
high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each
woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately
capable."
-James Truslow Adams

"The
universal promise of opportunity," Garfinkle writes, "was for Lincoln the philosophical
core of America: it was the essence of the American system. ‘Without the Constitution and the Union,'
he wrote, ‘we could not have
attained ... our great prosperity.' But the Constitution and the Union
were
not the ‘primary cause' of America, Lincoln believed. ‘There is
something,' he
continued, ‘back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human
heart ... This is the just and generous and prosperous system which
opens the way
to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and
improvement
of condition to all.' This was, for Lincoln, the American Dream, the
raison d'être
of America, and the unique contribution of America to world history."

Although
Garfinkle does not bring it out, I believe James Truslow Adams' vision of the
American Dream is at least as compelling as that of Lincoln. Adams used the
phrase, "the American dream," to refer, not to getting rich or even especially
to a secure, middle class lifestyle, though that was part of it, but primarily
to something finer and more important: "It is not a dream of motor cars and
high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each
woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately
capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the
fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." That American Dream is well worth carrying with us into the future.

The
competing vision, the Gospel of Wealth, found its origins in the Gilded Age. In
his 1889 book, The Gospel of Wealth,
Andrew Carnegie espoused a widely held philosophy that drew on Social Darwinism
and, though less crudely expressed, has many adherents today. To Carnegie, the
depressed conditions of late 19th century American workers and the
limited opportunities they faced were prices to be paid for the abundance
economic progress made possible. Carnegie was brutally honest in his views: "The
price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for
cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are
also greater still than its cost—for it is to this law that we owe our
wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train.
But, whether the law be benign or not ... it is here, we cannot evade it; no
substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for
the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the
fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to
which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the
concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few;
and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but
essential to the future progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows
that there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability in the
merchant and in the manufacturer who has to conduct affairs upon a great scale.
That this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proved by
the fact that it invariably secures enormous rewards for its possessor."

"Whereas in Lincoln's America, the underlying principle of economic life was
widely shared equality of opportunity, based on the ideals set forth in the
Declaration of Independence, in Carnegie's America the watchword was inequality."

Garfinkle
recounts the many ways Carnegie's Gospel stood Lincoln's vision on its head:
"Whereas in Lincoln's America, the underlying principle of economic life was
widely shared equality of opportunity, based on the ideals set forth in the
Declaration of Independence, in Carnegie's America the watchword was inequality
and the concentration of wealth and resource in the hands of the few. Whereas
in Lincoln's America, government was to take an active role in clearing the
path for ordinary people to get ahead, in Carnegie's America, the government
was to step aside and let the laws of economics run their course. Whereas in
Lincoln's America, the laborer had a right to the fruits of his labor, in
Carnegie's America the fruits went disproportionately to the business owner and
investor as the fittest. Whereas in Lincoln's America, the desire was to help
all Americans fulfill the dream of the self-made man, in Carnegie's America, it
was the rare exception, the man of unusual talent that was to be supported."

Since
the Reagan Revolution, of course, the Gospel of Wealth has returned with a
vengeance. Income and wealth have been reconcentrated in the hands of the few
at levels not seen since 1928, American wages have flatlined for several
decades, the once-proud American middle class is fading fast, and government
action to improve the prospects of average Americans is widely disparaged.
Indeed, government has pursued policies leading to the dramatic decline in both
union membership and good American jobs. In a sample of its 20 peer OECD
countries, the United States today has the lowest social mobility, the greatest
income inequality, and the most poverty.

The Consumers' Republic or the City on the Hill?

A
third historical duality in envisioning America is that between an American
lifestyle that revolves around consumption and one that embraces plain and
simple living. In her important book, The
Consumers' Republic, Lizabeth Cohen traces the rise of mass consumption in
America to policies adopted after World War II: "Americans after World War II
saw their nation as the model for the world of a society committed to mass
consumption and what were assumed to be its far-reaching benefits. Mass
consumption did not only deliver wonderful things for purchase—the
televisions, air conditioners, and computers that have transformed American
life over the last half century. It also dictated the most central dimensions
of postwar society, including the political economy (the way public policy and
the mass consumption economy mutually reinforced each other), as well as the
political culture (how political practice and American values, attitudes, and
behaviors tied to mass consumption became intertwined)."

However, Cohen also
documents that, whatever its blessings, American consumerism has had profound
and unintended consequences on broader issues of social justice and democracy.
She notes that "the Consumers' Republic did not unfold quite as policymakers
intended ... the Consumers' Republic's dependence on unregulated private
markets wove inequalities deep into the fabric of prosperity, thereby allowing,
intentionally or not, the search for profits and the exigencies of the market
to prevail over higher goals. Often the outcome dramatically diverged from the
stated objective to use mass markets to create a more egalitarian and
democratic American society ... [T]he deeply entrenched convictions
prevailing in the Consumers' Republic that a dynamic, private, mass consumption
marketplace could float all boats and that a growing economy made reslicing the
economic pie unnecessary predisposed Americans against more redistributive
actions ...

"Most ironic
perhaps, the confidence that a prospering mass consumption economy could foster
democracy would over time contribute to a decline in the most traditional, and
one could argue most critical, form of political participation—voting—as
more commercialized political salesmanship replaced rank-and-file mobilization
through parties."

The creation of
the Consumers' Republic represented the triumph of one vision of American life
and purpose. But there has been a competing vision, what historian David Shi
calls the tradition of "plain living and high thinking," a tradition that began
with the Puritans and the Quakers. In his book, The Simple Life, Shi sees in American history a "perpetual tension ... between the ideal of enlightened self-restraint and the allure of
unfettered prosperity. From colonial days, the mythic image of America as a
spiritual commonwealth and a republic of virtue has survived alongside the more
tantalizing view of the nation as an engine of economic opportunities, a
festival of unfettered individualism, and a cornucopia of consumer delights."

"The concept [of
the simple life] arrived with the first settlers, and it has remained an
enduring—and elusive—ideal ... Its primary attributes include a
hostility toward luxury and a suspicion of riches, a reverence for nature and a
preference for rural over urban ways of life and work, a desire for personal
self-reliance through frugality and diligence, a nostalgia for the past, a
commitment to conscientious rather than conspicuous consumption, a privileging
of contemplation and creativity, an aesthetic preference for the plain and functional,
and a sense of both religious and ecological responsibility for the just uses
of the world's resources."

In the end, these
three dueling dualities in the American tradition—competing over the meaning
of happiness, the path to prosperity, the centrality of consumerism—tell much
the same story: the vision of an America where the pursuit of happiness is
sought in the growth of civic virtue and in devotion to the public good, where
the American dream is steadily realized as the average American achieves his or
her human potential and the benefits of economic activity are widely shared,
and where the virtues of simple living, self-reliance and reverence for nature predominate,
that vision has not prevailed and has instead been overpowered by the rise of
commercialism, consumerism, and a particularly ruthless variety of
winner-take-all capitalism.

New ways of living
and working, sharing and caring are emerging across America. They beckon us
with a new American Dream, one rebuilt from the best of the old, drawing on the
best of who we were and are and can be.

These American traditions
may not have prevailed to date, but they are not dead. They await us, and
indeed they are today being awakened across this great land. New ways of living
and working, sharing and caring are emerging across America. They beckon us
with a new American Dream, one rebuilt from the best of the old, drawing on the
best of who we were and are and can be.

There is an
America beyond despair, and it is fueling these developments. Ask a parent, ask
yourself, what America would you like for your grandchildren and their
children, and the odds are good that in the reply, the outpouring of hope, a
new America unfolds.

He wrote this article for , where it originally appeared.

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James Gustave Speth is an environmental lawyer, advocate, and author, most recently of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability.
From 1999 to 2008, he was dean of the Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies. From 1993 to 1999, he served as administrator of
the UN Development Programme and chair of the UN Development Group.
Prior to his service at the UN, he was founder and president of the
World Resources Institute; professor of law at Georgetown University;
chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality; and senior
attorney and cofounder, Natural Resources Defense Council.